Merry Christmas to the Forgotten, Lonely and Depressed for the Holidays
Donald Jefries

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Who can argue with that? Beautiful displays everywhere, many homes adorned with lovely lights, including some completely covering slippery rooftops. Remember, the Secret Service chief said sloping roofs were too dangerous for trained agents. But not for festive, middle age homeowners.

The Christmas season really begins now the day after Halloween. The stores instantly change from orange pumpkins to Yuletide red and green. In many places, Christmas music is still piped in for shoppers to enjoy. Sure, some of it’s what John Lennon once derided as muzak, but there’s still plenty of original classics to enjoy, from Darlene Love’s dynamic Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) to Tom Petty’s Christmastime Again to the Ronettes (or better yet, John Prine) crooning I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus to Lennon’s own timeless Happy Christmas, the War is Over. Probably the best known Christmas protest song ever written. And in between all the secular favorites, a few real Carols slip through. I still stop and marvel at every rendition of O’ Come All Ye Faithful, and the one I love best, Hark the Herald Angels Sing. If they weren’t divinely inspired, I don’t know what music ever has been.

The man I consider the greatest writer the English language ever produced, Charles Dickens, pretty much invented modern Christmas, during the Victorian age. His Christmas tales, especially A Christmas Carol, perhaps the most perfect story ever written, helped to popularize the notion of trimmed Christmas trees, gift giving, a lavish holiday meal, and the spirit of Christmas, which I think is a real thing. However, even before Dickens was published, in 1823, the poem Twas the Night Before Christmas, by Clement C. Moore, really introduced Santa Claus to the American population. Not to mention stockings hung by the chimney, and sugar plums dancing in the heads of little children. Dickens and England had Father Christmas, but we had jolly old St. Nicholas, aka Santa Claus, who later went on to drink Coca Cola like the rest of us. And his obesity was celebrated by a much leaner population.

Now I don’t want the subtitle of this little missive to be misleading. I am not now, nor have I ever been lonely or depressed during the holidays. I had the kind of wonderful Christmases most Baby Boomers enjoyed as a child. My mother, despite being financially strapped, did all she could to satisfy my inevitably lengthy Christmas list. Except for that Ludwig drum set. Which I really need to stop complaining about. And when my wife came into the picture as my girlfriend, she introduced me to a whole new level of holiday celebration. Between her family and mine, we spent many years basically enjoying three Christmases, starting on Christmas Eve and extending to late Christmas night. What would I possibly be depressed about? I was spoiled rotten. And up until the mid-’90s or so, I could accentuate this by watching the endless showings of It’s a Wonderful Life that permeated cable television then.

But gradually, I began to realize that not everyone was celebrating three Christmases. Or even one. I heard from several people in this unenviable position, once I became the slightly well known writer I am now. I learned that some people really hate Christmas. I guess if your family is dysfunctional enough that they can’t even get together once a year and act civil to each other, then you would probably resent all the joy and happiness that seems to be going on all around you. Sure, a lot of the Christmas cheer is alcohol induced and/or phony, but even then it’s “the most acceptable form of hypocrisy,” to quote the great Ambrose Bierce, who I’m confident despised Christmas. Whether it really comes from the heart, most people feel an obligation- if not an earnest desire- to give to others, especially their closest loved ones, at Christmastime. No matter the motivation, isn’t that a good thing?

I think of those who will be sitting in their probably small, perhaps too chilly residences on Christmas Eve, all by themselves. There are no children to go through the ritual of leaving milk and cookies for Santa. Almost certainly no Christmas tree. No stockings, and no fireplace. If they have no family that cares enough to see them over the holidays, they aren’t likely to even receive a phone call. No one other than maybe the Salvation Army volunteer, assuming they visit the grocery store (they don’t have anyone to buy Christmas presents for), will even wish them “Merry Christmas.” I doubt they’ll be watching A Charlie Brown Christmas or Jimmy Durante singing Frosty the Snowman. Any reminder of the season is likely to bring back bad memories. Or, perhaps even worse, good memories. Of what Christmas once was.

The “experts,” as is their wont, have diagnosed the situation and given it a fancy scientific name. Seasonal Affective Disorder- conveniently SAD for short. I don’t think that SAD is a real malady any more than Executive Burnout is a legitimate thing. And I wonder if those who are alone and forgotten during the holidays come from exclusively Christian families? Is there any evidence that many Jews are lonely during Hanukkah? How many Muslims ignore family members during important holidays? What about Kwanza? As ridiculous as this contrived “holiday” is, is anyone really lonely at Kwanza? It does seem like this is a Christian phenomenon. Which is not that surprising, since so many modern Christians ignore the Golden Rule, and don’t love their neighbor. So it stands to reason that they probably would have little patience for eccentric or troubled relatives.

There’s the old saying about every horrible adult, even every serial killer, being “once some mother’s baby.” I doubt there are any evil infants. But then that’s the old liberal in me- nurture over nature. At any rate, assuming some future lonely and depressed adults had nice Christmases as children, what happened? If the lonely, depressed adult is young enough, their parents could still be alive. Did they stop celebrating the holidays, too? How about siblings? Did the dysfunction just cut through all the memories of wondering what each one was getting for Christmas, of peeking at the presents in the closet? How can something so special just disappear for some people? Or even worse, are these families still getting together, still enjoying all the turkey and trimmings, and excluding one ostracized member? Not letting the black sheep join in any of their reindeer games? What can cause this kind of unforgiving division?

Although it’s surely been exacerbated by the Trumpenstein Project, we can’t blame this on Trump. Sure, some of those not together with certain or all family members is due to someone in their midst voting or not voting for Trump. And there are obviously some cases of the unvaccinated not being invited to go caroling or make gingerbread houses, either. But there were lonely and depressed people at Christmastime long before Trump. Before the COVID-19 psyop. Something happens in too many families, where a child’s decisions or actions are so beyond the pale that their parents, and/or their siblings, just write them off. Forever. The reverse can happen as well. Adult children just turn their backs on those who raised them. How bad a job could they have done as parents to deserve that, short of violently beating them? How bad can a breach of conduct be, to make you stop caring about your closest loved ones?

I come from a family with a history of this nonsense. My paternal grandfather supposedly had some kind of ridiculous feud with his brother, which resulted in them not speaking for decades. No one knows what the dispute was about, but it was enough for his children to be forced to cross the street if they saw the brother or his family coming. And on my maternal side, one of my great-grandfathers was said to be so incensed over the soup being too hot, that he literally got up and walked out on his wife, after decades of probably less than wedded bliss. He was a real pathfinder, great-grandpa Sullivan was, as he became one of the first full time residents of a nursing home, where he ended his days alone. No Christmases together for at least that Sullivan. That’s just so tragic, but would be very common in today’s insane society. Those are the genes I must contend with. This lunacy can happen in any family.

I know those who are the worst off of all will be eating dinner on Christmas Day at a soup kitchen. If you look into the backgrounds of the homeless, there are usually drugs or mental illness somewhere in the equation. That still doesn’t excuse their families for abandoning them to the streets, at least in my view. But the lonely and depressed I’m thinking of aren’t mentally ill, and aren’t drug addicts. They may not even drink any more than fine upstanding citizens like you and I do. They are simply forgotten. I call them the Invisibles. And I think that’s a lot sadder than being mentally ill or addicted to drugs. I know there are many who are alone voluntarily. So I don’t include them in this category. If you want to be alone, like Greta Garbo, and are happy alone, then why should I, or anyone else, feel sorry for you? Isn’t being happy a good thing? I care about those who long for an invitation to a family celebration.

My childhood was scarred by alcoholism, and the constant sickness of my parents. But we always celebrated at Christmas. I always had lots of presents, and a full stocking. And thanks to my doting wife, I still have a stocking, at age sixty eight, just like I still get an Easter basket. For a brief period during my teens, we went to Midnight Mass every Christmas. I thought it was so cool, going into church at night, and the carols were incomparable. Yes, I even snuck a whiskey sour in before I went. You really can’t have too much Christmas cheer. My family used to make whiskey sours at Christmas, and I came to associate that drink with the holiday. We stopped going to Midnight Mass for some reason, and I haven’t been to Christmas Mass since my kids were teenagers themselves. And no, I didn’t let them drink whiskey sours beforehand. But I’ve never lost my fervent faith, and it’s always strongest at Christmas.

I’d have to think hard about what I personally would want for Christmas. Beyond health and happiness, and peace on earth. That’s no cliche. Peace on earth would be a really great thing. Sure, I’d like to sell more books, to not shake my head in disgust when I look at a royalty check. They give authors a pittance for their work. The Man always makes the money. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads book reviews are gifts. More X followers, please. I am very grateful for my growing number of Substack subscribers, but I’d certainly ask for more paid subscribers if I made out a Christmas List. Substack tells me they’re putting some kind of message at the top of all Substack posts during the Christmas season, reminding people of how great a gift a Substack paid subscription would be. Very inexpensive, and it keeps giving the whole year round. So that’s what people can get me. I know, that’s certainly a First World problem if ever there was one. I wouldn’t argue if you even called it White Privilege.

I hope that those who are alone at Christmas don’t consider themselves failures. Remember the spine-tingling line from It’s a Wonderful Life: “Remember, George, no man is a failure who has friends,” which actually comes from Mark Twain, a noted atheist who probably didn’t celebrate Christmas. I don’t know how many people who are involuntarily alone at Christmas actually have friends. At least friends who are close enough to perhaps invite them over on Christmas Day. Many who aren’t alone at Christmas no longer have close friends, when they reach the wrinkling and graying stage. But if they have family, that’s all that matters. Unless their family has abandoned them, in which case they have no one. Okay, I’m depressing myself now. I will never lose this bleeding heart. I don’t apologize for that. And if any involuntarily alone people are reading this, as little as it may be worth, you have a friend in me.

I’ll be celebrating with my loved ones, and trying to remember the reason for the season. But I’ll also be thinking of those who aren’t as fortunate. Who’ve been neglected by their own families, for reasons they don’t understand. Who have no festive, well lit tree to sit in front of. No turkey dinner awaiting them. No mistletoe to hang, because there won’t be anyone to get stuck under it with. No one to hug or kiss. They could make whiskey sours, but it’s never fun to drink alone. At least I never could enjoy it. God bless the forgotten. Let’s hope that some of those cold-hearted family members will be inspired by the lesson of Ebenezer Scrooge, and redeem their hearts by reaching out to their lonely loved ones. Invite them over. Give them a present to open. If you’re walking down the street, smile and extend greetings to everyone. You might be wishing one of the Invisibles a Merry Christmas.

 

 

 

 

Donald Jeffries is the author of Hidden History, Survival of the Richest, Bullyocracy, Crimes and Cover-ups in American Politics: 1776-1963, and On Borrowed Fame. He is the host of podcast "I Protest with Donald Jeffries" and has been a favored guests on many other shows.

 

 

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